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Technology Stocks : Ampex Corporation (AEXCA) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn Perry who wrote (3502)	9/24/1998 11:00:00 AM
From: Hal Campbell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17679

Most of us have surely read about Long Term Capital's ( what a misnomer ) woes. Which brings to mind various conversations and events that if I fling em together may have some relevance to AXC...lol...hope so anyway. Of course LTC did very well at first...tripling assets ...which drew more assets. The obvious parallel with AXC which multiplied by 6 the first year many of us owned it. A guy who was a lawyer for the Federal Savings and Loan Resolution agency lived across the street from me. We had chatted about the fact that if they could have simply waited, inactive, for a year or two more, the market would have righted itself and txpayers would have saved many many billions of dollars. But they could not afford to allow that central linchpin of confidence to be perceived as fragile. And if Orange County could have waited - no problem. Again, perceptions of the linchpin. Now talk about conversations of hugely uncertain credibility ...lol...but I play backgammon on Yahoo to help soothe the porcupine quills sometime. Played an excellent player names Wayne, who claimed to be the manager of a very large hedge fund. He said they mostly sell derivatives to banks and corporations. I asked him how many of his customers, in his opinion, really understood what they were buying. He said 5% at most. I'd say that's about the percentage who had a 90% handle on what they were buying when they first bought AXC at the much higher levels than this. And I doubt anyone, even Bramson, fully understood the magnitude of the risks. But now - of those weary long term holders who are left - most seem to have a pretty good handle and what they hold ...what good things may happen ...what may not. What value is there and what potential. And what risk remains. At these levels the leverage should be about gone. No more margin calls. The index fund selling should have played out by now. The wild near term hopes have largely been dashed. Not a bad base to be forming. Sturdier perhaps than the last. Much sturdier.